staydetuned
Full Member
- Joined
- Aug 27, 2007
- Messages
- 217
- Reaction score
- 136
- Golden Thread
- 1
- Location
- San Francisco, California
- 🥇 Banner finds
- 1
- Detector(s) used
- Explorer II
Hi everyone… Finally found some time to post a great hunt from last week. This is from the park where Dan (CAPTN_SE) just found a couple Barbers and an Indian Head; this is from a week earlier…
This is the inspiration we had going into the hunt last week…
The only problem was, this was a particularly frightening inner city LA park. We’d heard about it for a long time – that this seated half came out of here, as well as two gold coins and a good number of Barbers and Indian Heads. But we’d heard other stories – that it was filled with gangs, that one detectorist had been threatened with a beating if he didn’t give a ride to a local crackhead, and that the draining of the park lake had revealed hundreds of handguns that had been ditched after crimes. In fact, one detectorist that joined us this day told us about how he’d been surrounded by 5 gangbanger types. He froze, not knowing what to do, until out of nowhere an older man in a cowboy hat stepped between them until the youths backed off one by one. He didn’t go back.
So you can imagine our paranoia and tension in finally deciding to hit this place. The plan was to arrive at sunrise, hunt for a couple hours close to our cars, and then get out of there alive. I even decided to swap out my usual hunting shoes – red Converse – for a pair with a bit loss color, and my dad brought some extra protection as well.
Early morning arrival, scoping out the park.
We began by our cars but it soon became apparent that it wasn’t going to be overly dangerous; what people there were in the park were everyday joggers, women, and older folk; no gangsters or gunshots to be heard. After an hour or so we’d calmed down enough to concentrate on the signals. The only problem now was that the ground was a literal blanket of shallow clad and trash; the decades of blight had, apparently, scared away other detectorists as well. There was a lot of clean up to do.
oknorom at work.
Eventually my dad, Mike (oknorom), and myself made our way to a less trashy area where 20s to 40s wheats were coming up regularly. It was a relief after digging a good amount of deep clad earlier.
Some kids were getting arrested when we arrived on the scene… Hmm…
Here’s Yours Truly with what I consider one of my best finds of the day. For some reason I found myself swinging extra slow (thinking about something or other) and barely caught a ridiculously light whisper. It was solid from most directions, but just so faint that I laughed out loud that I’d even caught it. I called oknorom over to hear it but he couldn’t get a good lock. I thought it had a faint sense of iron, and opening up to all-metal I caught some iron a few inches from the target, which I dug out at six inches. When I rescanned the target was still there, still soft and deep. I showed Mike again, but he still wasn’t sure. Mike’s a great hunter, so I was beginning to doubt it myself, but I already knew I was going to dig. Finally, at 8.5” (almost to the end of the probe) I heard that great silver tone and pulled out a gashed (oops!) 1916 Merc. Ahhhhh nooo! But fortunately when I turned it over it was an S : )
A couple minutes later my dad called me over to get some pictures of this signal…
Digging the plug…
Meanwhile, oknorom brings over his latest (of many) silver…
What’s that in the hole?
Looks like a rim!
Nice!
It was a good call after all, and we got it all on film… : )
Part II to follow momentarily...
This is the inspiration we had going into the hunt last week…
The only problem was, this was a particularly frightening inner city LA park. We’d heard about it for a long time – that this seated half came out of here, as well as two gold coins and a good number of Barbers and Indian Heads. But we’d heard other stories – that it was filled with gangs, that one detectorist had been threatened with a beating if he didn’t give a ride to a local crackhead, and that the draining of the park lake had revealed hundreds of handguns that had been ditched after crimes. In fact, one detectorist that joined us this day told us about how he’d been surrounded by 5 gangbanger types. He froze, not knowing what to do, until out of nowhere an older man in a cowboy hat stepped between them until the youths backed off one by one. He didn’t go back.
So you can imagine our paranoia and tension in finally deciding to hit this place. The plan was to arrive at sunrise, hunt for a couple hours close to our cars, and then get out of there alive. I even decided to swap out my usual hunting shoes – red Converse – for a pair with a bit loss color, and my dad brought some extra protection as well.
Early morning arrival, scoping out the park.
We began by our cars but it soon became apparent that it wasn’t going to be overly dangerous; what people there were in the park were everyday joggers, women, and older folk; no gangsters or gunshots to be heard. After an hour or so we’d calmed down enough to concentrate on the signals. The only problem now was that the ground was a literal blanket of shallow clad and trash; the decades of blight had, apparently, scared away other detectorists as well. There was a lot of clean up to do.
oknorom at work.
Eventually my dad, Mike (oknorom), and myself made our way to a less trashy area where 20s to 40s wheats were coming up regularly. It was a relief after digging a good amount of deep clad earlier.
Some kids were getting arrested when we arrived on the scene… Hmm…
Here’s Yours Truly with what I consider one of my best finds of the day. For some reason I found myself swinging extra slow (thinking about something or other) and barely caught a ridiculously light whisper. It was solid from most directions, but just so faint that I laughed out loud that I’d even caught it. I called oknorom over to hear it but he couldn’t get a good lock. I thought it had a faint sense of iron, and opening up to all-metal I caught some iron a few inches from the target, which I dug out at six inches. When I rescanned the target was still there, still soft and deep. I showed Mike again, but he still wasn’t sure. Mike’s a great hunter, so I was beginning to doubt it myself, but I already knew I was going to dig. Finally, at 8.5” (almost to the end of the probe) I heard that great silver tone and pulled out a gashed (oops!) 1916 Merc. Ahhhhh nooo! But fortunately when I turned it over it was an S : )
A couple minutes later my dad called me over to get some pictures of this signal…
Digging the plug…
Meanwhile, oknorom brings over his latest (of many) silver…
What’s that in the hole?
Looks like a rim!
Nice!
It was a good call after all, and we got it all on film… : )
Part II to follow momentarily...
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Either that or we're comin' out your way to get some of the OOOLD stuff... (and if we do start a mag... we can write it off! Free datectin' trips all over the US! Hmm...)
I've got one coming for my SE too!! I can't wait.
